History of Unitarian Universalism

Two movements take form

The Unitarian and Universalist movements both germinated in specific religious issues. Both grew to encompass religious doubters of many views, and both eventually welcomed to their ranks all thoughtful men and women who would accept the right of others to have different views.

Though Jesus had been dead several hundred years before the word “Unitarian” came into use, the movement that eventually acquired that label began shortly after his death. Then, many who knew Jesus talked of his humanity and his teachings, while others who had only heard of him touted his divinity and began to construct a religion that was more about him than of him.

Philosophical differences begin with trinity

The issue that polarized the inheritors of these philosophical differences was the doctrine of the trinity, adopted in 325 A.D. by means more political than religious. The Trinitarians, who believed in, “God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Ghost” said that those who stressed the unity of God (later known as Unitarians) were heretics. Many of the Unitarians were executed for their beliefs. Best known of these martyrs is Michael Servetus, who was burned at the stake in 1553 for writing “On The Errors of the Trinity.”

More than a hundred years before the affirmation of the trinity the seeds of Universalism were being planted by the articulate and prolific intellectual, Origen. Origen, who, like the Unitarians, stressed the humanity of Jesus, produced the issue on which this liberal religious movement would be built. He argued that there was no hell and talked of a benevolent God who would offer salvation to all people.

The same century that saw the Unitarian Servetus murdered also saw Unitarian beliefs under a variety of names gain a tenuous foothold in Switzerland, Britain, Hungary and Italy. This stubborn movement produced its own dynamic ministers. Literature was distributed. In many cases entire congregations broke away from the orthodox church. In1638 the first Unitarian church to use that name was established in Transylvania, which had become fertile ground for religious doubt eighty years earlier under its Unitarian king Sigismund.

Leaders emerge in both denominations

In 17th and 18th century England, though anti-Trinitarians were still outcasts, their numbers grew. Often they there men and women who found their way into the history books for reasons other than their religious activities. John Milton, Isaac Newton, John Locke, and Florence Nightingale were all people who fought for religious tolerance. By the first decade of the 19th century 20 Unitarian churches had been established in England and many others had taken on a Unitarian character.

In the 17th and 18th centuries the Universalist view also made great strides. In Germany many Universalist groups expanded and further defined the Universalist doctrine. In 1759 in England James Relly published “Union” which denied the Calvinistic doctrine of salvation for the few and claimed that all would be saved.

Universalism comes to America

John Murray, a follower of Relly, helped deliver the Universalist movement safely to the shores of America. In 1779 Murray occupied the pulpit of the Independent Christian Church of Gloucester, Massachusetts, which was the first organized Universalist church in America. Twenty-six years later the movement’s greatest exponent, Hosea Ballou, articulated Universalist doctrine in his book, “A Treatise on Atonement,” which sought to prove the doctrine of the trinity was unscriptural, and argued against miracles and the view of men and women as depraved creatures who would burn in hell.

One of those who carried the torch of Unitarianism to America was Joseph Priestley, a Unitarian minister better known as the discoverer of oxygen. After being harassed and nearly killed in England by those of a less liberal bent, Priestley established the first openly Unitarian church in America in Philadelphia in 1796. Soon many well established American churches acquired Unitarian ministers or Unitarian views. By now the day was long gone when an aversion to Trinitarian doctrine was sufficient to define these religious liberals. In Unitarianism and Universalism virtually every aspect of religion was fair game for doubt and debate. Many smaller liberal movements began, later to be reabsorbed into the Unitarian Universalist movement as it learned greater and greater tolerance.

Focus on social justice

In the 19th century both Unitarianism and Universalism took on associations with causes of social justice that have endured to this day. Often led by women, like Julia Ward Howe, Susan B. Anthony, and Clara Barton, the liberal religious movement became the champion of the abolition of slavery, women rights, and penal reform. Though these issues sometimes divided the religious liberals, the gap was often greater between members of the same movement than it was between Unitarians and Universalists. As the two movements grew and acquired greater definition in the ministries of Hosea Ballou, Ralph Waldo Emerson, William Ellery Channing, Theodore Parker, and others, the two paths of religious liberalism grew ever closer.

Both movements became more organized. In 1785 a Universalist convention adopted a Charter of Compact, which eventually evolved into the Universalist Church of America. In May of 1825 the America Unitarian Association was formed. In 1842 the first Unitarian church in Canada was founded in Montreal.

Denominations join in 1961

The Unitarians and Universalists shared first a philosophy of religious tolerance and religious questioning. Later they shared resources such as religious education materials, a joint hymnal, and finally on May 11,1961 they combined their organizational strength by becoming the Unitarian Universalist Association of Congregations in North America. However, nothing stopped on that day. There are still questions to be asked, views to be heard, a journey to be shared. The paths have merged but the road goes on.

Adapted from Gary Provost